The New York Times reports that Limbocker claims 95% of the wines were undamaged in the hurricane, but his behaviour has led many clients to speculate that much of the wine inside the facility has been harmed by the storm.

A number of prominent New York wine collectors have filled lawsuits against Limbocker, who filed for bankruptcy a day before one of his clients, Philip Waterman III, was due to inspect his £200,000 collection stored at the facility.

Among them are Donald Drapkin, a hedge fund manager who has part of his wine collection, which has an estimated value of £3.4m, stored at WineCare.

“Everyone in the New York wine world is aware of it,” Jamie Ritchie, president of Sotheby’s Wine, told The New York Times.

Limbocker admitted to the newspaper that humidity levels from the storm lifted the labels off some 1,200 bottles and that thousands of bottles broke in transit when cases were moved to avoid flood waters.

WineCare is allegedly working to clean up the bottles that survived the storm and

Limbocker has been given permission to relocate the wine to a warehouse in New Jersey.

Having owned and run an off licence on New York’s Upper East Side, Limbocker opened WineCare Storage in 2005.

Hurricane Sandy killed 44 people in New York City and ravaged 305,000 homes in New York State.